The First Sermon of the Buddha and Ashoka's Fourth Major Rock Edict fter gaining enlightenment under the Tree of Wisdom at Bodh Gaya, the Buddha preached IThis first semon at the Deer Park at Benares. The Fourth Major Rock Edict provides a summary of Ashoka's beliefs. Some overlap with the Buddha's teachings in the First Sermon, while others differ. Although Ashoka himself embraced Buddhism, he The Buddha's sermon presented the main teachings of Buddhism in a capsule form that could be trans- lated into other languages when Buddhism spread beyond India to East and Southeast Asia. Because the language is easy to understand, this would have worked well as a spoken sermon, with repetition of important concepts to ensure that the five followers, or bhikkhus (BEAK-kooz), whom he addressed would understand it. This text was transmitted orally by Buddhists in north India. Hundreds of monks met, first following the Buddha's death and then one hundred years later, to make sure that they were reciting the reached out to both Buddhist and non-Buddhist sub- jects by erecting pillar and rock insaiptions through- out India. The location of his edicts provides a rough indication of how far Buddhist teachings reached during his reign. Sources From "The First Sermon of Buddha," from Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, Grove Atlantic, 1974, pp. 92-94. Copyright O 1959, 1974 by Wapola Rahula. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.; As'oka and the Decline cof the Mauryas, ed. Romila Thapar, 1973, Pp. 251-252. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press India, New Delhi. (Some changes in spelling and capitalization made for the sake of consistency.) standard version of the sermon. The text was commit- ted to writing only in the first century B.C.E. by monks in modern-day Sri Lanka, evidence that Buddhism had spread to south India and beyond by that time. The Flrst Sermon of the Buddha Thus I have heard. The Blessed One was once living in the Deer Park at Istpatana (the Resort of Seers) near Varanasi (Benares). There he addressed the group of flve bhikkhus: Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleas- ant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering-in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering. The Noble Truth of the origin of suffering Is this: It is this thirst (craving) which produces reexistence and re-becoming, bound up with passionate greed. It finds fresh delight now here and now there, namely, thirst for sense- pleasures; thirst for existence and becoming and thirst for non-existence (self-annihilation). from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to the indulgence of sense- pleasures, which is low, common, the way of ordinary people, unworthy and unprofitable; and there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tatha- gatha [the Buddha] has realized the Middle Path: it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, to nirvana. And what is that Middle Path...? It is simply the Noble Elghtfold Path, namely, right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.... The Noble Truth of suffering (dukkha) The Noble Truth of the cessation of suf- fering is this: It is the complete cessation of that very thirst, giving it up, renouncing it, emancipating oneself from it, detaching oneself from it. The Noble Truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering is this: It is simply the Noble Elghtfold Path, namely right view; right thought; right speech; right action; right is this: Birth is suffering; aging is suffering;